The Gothic Moor conflates sexual desire with diabolical horror

Evidence

Zofloya tells the story of the spoiled, malicious, and vengeful Victoria, who is led by a dark-skinned Moor named Zofloya to commit numerous crimes. As in many Gothic tales, the subconscious plays a central role in this text. Dreams are moments of revelation that “influence one’s waking life and reveal an inner psychical or spiritual awakening.” Victoria’s sexual desire for the Moor, who at the story’s conclusion reveals his true identity as Satan, is one of the secrets hidden in the subconscious. … The Moor disappears at the beginning of the story, returning as Satan, making it unclear whether he was the beast all along. The only clue that something has changed in him is found in Victoria’s comment that he seemed “different before and after his appearance.” It is unclear when his body became inhabited by the evil being. In one dream, Victoria identifies the Moor with both sexual attraction and horror. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 492

Categorization

• DEFINE: Zofloya exemplifies the archetype: in the Gothic imagination the dark Muslim (Moor) becomes the container for the Western subject’s repressed sexual desire — itself revealed, in the endgame, to BE Satan.
• XREF: Supports the reader’s core thesis about the Muslim monster as a manufactured projection; directly extends the ‘monster/demon’ axis the reader is tracking across the book.